WPBeginner - WordPress Tutorials for Beginners

Beginner's Guide for WordPress / Start your WordPress Blog in minutes

How to Properly Disable Google AMP in WordPress

Last updated on by Editorial Staff | Reader DisclosureDisclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us.

Shares 240 Share Facebook Messenger WhatsApp

Do you want to disable Google AMP on your WordPress website?

Many bloggers and websites that jumped on the Google AMP bandwagon are now disabling it for different reasons. AMP pages have lower conversions, pageviews, and overall engagement. Plus, the latest Google Analytics version doesn’t support Google AMP.

In this article, we will show you how to properly disable Google AMP in WordPress.

How to disable AMP in WordPress

Why You Should Disable Google AMP in WordPress

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source initiative to make the web faster for mobile users and improve user experience.

It does so by serving pages with bare minimal HTML and JavaScript. This allows the content to be hosted on Google AMP Cache. Google can then serve this cached version to users instantly when they click on your link in the search results.

However, if you have chosen to set up Google AMP in WordPress, you might feel that you’ve made the wrong choice.

You’re not alone. Many website owners, influencers, and online publications have stopped using AMP on their WordPress blogs.

First, we’re going to go through why you may consider disabling AMP on your WordPress website, and then we will walk you through the process.

Google Analytics 4 Doesn’t Support AMP

Google Analytics 4 or GA4 is the latest version of Google Analytics that tracks your website and mobile apps in the same account. The new version brings a lot of changes, including new reporting features, metrics, and reports.

Among these changes is that GA4 doesn’t support AMP at the moment, and it’s not confirmed whether it will work in the future. That means you won’t get any data about visitors to your AMP pages.

Since Google will sunset Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023, if you haven’t created a Google Analytics 4 property, then now is the best time. After the sunset date, Universal Analytics will no longer track your site data.

Plus, Google has said that you’ll only be able to access old data for 6 months. They have not committed to longer than that.

To protect your data, we recommend setting up dual tracking and using Universal Analytics and GA4 simultaneously. This will give you time to learn the new features and have historical data for comparison.

For more details, please see our guide on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.

Drastic Drop in Conversion Rates

Google AMP sets lots of restrictions on HTML/JavaScript. This means that many interactive elements from your WordPress website go missing with AMP, like optin forms and exit-intent popups.

As a result, site owners cannot encourage users to subscribe, fill out contact forms, or buy stuff.

Lower Pageviews by Mobile Users

AMP does not show your website’s sidebars or other content discovery features. This causes a significant drop in pageviews by mobile users.

In fact, some user experience experts suggest that the close button on top actually encourages users to return to Google search after reading your article instead of browsing your website.

Close button on amp pages

Lower User Engagement

Many websites thrive on user interactions, like click-to-tweet widgets, user ratings, comments, and so on. Google AMP makes it quite difficult for website owners to keep users engaged and interact with their content.

Should You Disable Google AMP?

The answer to this question actually depends on your website. If mobile users make up the majority of your audience, then you may still want to use AMP.

On the other hand, if you have tried Google AMP, and it has negatively affected your conversion rates, then you should probably disable Google AMP on your website.

Contrary to popular belief, Google does not penalize websites for not using AMP. You can still improve your website’s speed and performance on mobile to compete for a mobile search audience.

With all that in mind, let’s see how you can disable AMP on your WordPress website.

Disabling Google AMP Plugins in WordPress

Not everyone uses the same WordPress plugins to add AMP support to your website. However, the basic settings remain the same regardless of what plugin you use.

The first thing you need to do is to deactivate whichever AMP plugin you have installed.

Simply visit the Plugins » Installed Plugins page from your WordPress dashboard and click on ‘Deactivate’ below the AMP plugin’s name.

Deactivate the amp plugin

Just deactivating the plugin will disable the AMP support on your website. However, there are a few more steps to follow to ensure your site is AMP-free.

Setting up Redirects for AMP Pages

Disabling the AMP plugin will remove the AMP version of your articles from the website. However, that alone is not enough, especially if you have AMP turned on for more than a week.

There is a good chance that Google already has those pages indexed and will keep showing those pages in search results. If a user clicks on one and you’ve removed it from your site, they will find a 404 page since that content is now missing.

To fix this problem, you need to redirect users coming to AMP pages to the regular non-AMP pages.

We will show you two different methods to set up redirects for Google AMP, first using a plugin and then using code. You can choose the one that’s most convenient for you.

Method 1: Using a Redirect Plugin

The easiest way to set up redirection in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It’s the best SEO plugin for WordPress that offers a powerful redirection manager.

Note that you’ll need the AIOSEO Pro license because it includes the redirection manager.

First, you will need to install and activate the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to All in One SEO » Redirects from the WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Activate Redirects’ button.

Activate redirects addon

This will help will then help you install the AIOSEO Redirection Manager add-on that handles this feature. Upon activation, you’ll be taken to the ‘Redirects’ tab. Here, you can enter the source and target URLs to set up redirection.

First, you’ll need to click the ‘Gear’ icon in the Source URL field and then enable the ‘Regex’ checkbox.

Enable regex option in redirection manager

After that, you can add the following code in the Source URL field:

^/(.*)\/amp

In the Target URL field, you need to add your website’s URL in the following format:

https://example.com/$1

Don’t forget to replace ‘example.com’ with your own domain name.

Enter redirection details

Next, you can keep the ‘Redirect Type’ as 301 Moved Permanently. This way, your users will be permanently redirected to the non-AMP pages.

Finally, click the ‘Add Redirect’ button to save your changes.

You can now visit the URL of a former-AMP page on your website to see if the redirect is working properly.

AIOSEO also helps your track broken links on your website. You can quickly identify AMP pages leading to 404 errors and redirect them. For more details, please see our guide on how to track 404 pages and redirect them in WordPress.

Method 2: Manually Set Redirects in .htaccess

If you don’t want to use a plugin to set up redirects, then you can configure redirection using the .htaccess file on your WordPress hosting account.

First, you will need to connect to your website using an FTP client or File Manager in cPanel. For more details, please see our guide on how to use FTP to upload files in WordPress.

Once connected, you need to locate the .htaccess file in your website’s root folder.

Open .htaccess file

Next, you can edit the file in your root folder.

Then simply add the following code at the bottom of your .htaccess file:

// Redirect AMP to non-AMP
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (.+)/amp(.*)$
RewriteRule ^ %1/ [R=301,L]

Don’t forget to save your changes and upload the file back to your server.

You can now visit the URL for the former AMP version of any post on your website to ensure the redirect works as intended.

We hope this article helped you properly disable Google AMP in WordPress. You may also want to see our step-by-step ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners and the best tips to speed up WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Popular on WPBeginner Right Now!

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Get FREE access to our toolkit – a collection of WordPress related products and resources that every professional should have!

Download Now

Reader Interactions

119 CommentsLeave a Reply

  2. After following all the steps, now I’m getting this error “Discovered – Currently not Indexed” for my non-amp pages.

    Reply

  3. I’ve tried applying this to a site I’m working on without any luck. I’ve cleared cache and tried a handful of other things, but the redirects do not seem to be catching. Does this work for sites that google is wrapping the url in themselves?

    Reply

  4. I installed the Redirection Plugin and followed the process. Amp was only Active on our mobile version and only showed if our website was searched, for example, Delta, and then clicked on the link. If you entered the URL in the address bar it would show our website correctly. I am at a loss!

    I know it was amp because Amp is the in URL when the website is not displayed correctly. Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.

    Reply

    • You would want to ensure you clear any caching you have on your site as that could be showing the cached version of the page on your site instead of the updated version.

      Reply

      Admin

  6. I did it and it works thanks.. I was in a panic. Just one thing – a little sad looking emoji guy pops up and says ‘404 that’s an error’ just before the user is directed to the correct page. It pops up for a minute then goes away. How can I get rid of him?

    Reply

    • You may either need to clear your browser cache or check with your hosting provider to ensure there isn’t something causing issues with your redirects.

      Reply

      Admin

  9. I have removed AMP from my website but when disabled my AMP i will recieved new issue in Google Search Console as a “Referenced AMP url is not an AMP”.
    Please tell me sir how can it solved.

    Reply

  10. That’s great info and help guys. Thanks a lot. Here’s my question:

    What is the right direction code or way for redirect my old website’s amp pages to my new domain’s non-amp pages?

    Reply

    • You would want to follow step 2 in the article and have the source URL be the old domain before the / in our recommendation.

      Reply

      Admin

    • We would recommend keeping the plugin active while using the redirect if you use the plugin method.

      Reply

      Admin

  13. Hit a little snag. I have added the code you suggest to my .htaccess file. I now get an internal error 500 from the server if I am trying to access an amp post. Normal pages display correctly.

    Reply

  14. Thanks for the wonderful article. I wonder how one can remove just a single page from amp. Your method only explains removing all amp pages of a website but I want to remove just one page. How can I remove it please help.

    Reply

    • You would want to check with the plugin’s support for if that is currently an option. Normally, you should see an option on the page/post itself to not use AMP.

      Reply

      Admin

  15. This is super easy to follow, so I’m so grateful to have found this post – but my AMP pages are still showing on Google, even after doing the redirection using the Redirection plugin. I’m not sure what to do, I saw in the comments something about caching, but I’m not sure how to do this?

    Reply

    • For Google’s cache, you would need to have Google recrawl your site with its URL checker or wait for Google to notice the update and change your links.

      Reply

      Admin

  16. Thanks for such a nice article and your way of explaining was very simple. With this helpful article, I have easily redirected my website and remove AMP successfully.

    Lots of thanks

    Reply

  17. Hi Sir, i following all the steps but, i saw all the amp link on google which are ranked now how i can removed that amp ranked links on google. As well when i search on google about my site then i saw amp logo after my site tittle even now I’m not using apm. Now how i removed that icon.

    Reply

  19. Hey I have page which have /?amp AMP format. So what change I have to do for proper redirection,

    As the code given above /(.*)\/amp is only redirection pages with /amp.

    Please tell me what change required for this ? thing.

    Reply

    • You could create an additional redirect where you add * before amp if you customized your amp URLs to show like that.

      Reply

      Admin

  22. I have disabled AMP on my site using the mentioned codes. But the post/page previews are showing in AMP mode. What to do? Using TagDiv NewsPaper theme.

    Reply

    • You would want to ensure you’ve cleared all of your caching for the most common reason for that.

      Reply

      Admin

    • Yours AMP pages are in Google cache, so when Google Bot re-index and check no rel=”amphtml” tag they index non-AMP page.

      Reply

  23. Hi, this article sounds very useful, thanks for sharing!
    Before I will deactivate/uninstall AMP plugin as well, I have to ask a question.

    I have, by mistake, redirected few of amp links (with amp plugin already installed) to my normal url link:
    example.com/amp to example.com
    The reason why I did that redirect with redirection plugin, is that I had no knowledge of what amp is, and so I thought it’s an error, when I was migrating my site.
    Now my question is, should I rather disable all my redirects with amp and then disable/uninstall the AMP plugin and then do the bulk redirect ?

    Thank you for your help!

    Reply

    • To be safe you may want to create an export of your current redirects, remove them, then do the method in this article to prevent the possibility of multiple redirects

      Reply

      Admin

  24. Hi,
    Can you tell me, when we can remove the redirection plugin. Does google remove the amp pages automatically after some time?

    Reply

    • Once the amp pages are no longer being indexed you can remove the redirection. It takes time and Google recrawling your site for the links to be removed.

      Reply

      Admin

      • Thanks for the quicky reply.

        One more question, I’ve to ask, If I don’t do the redirection, then still google remove the amp pages after some time?

        Thanks.

        Reply

  25. Hi

    I followed the steps above. However, when searching on my mobile device the amp pages are still popping up (It’s only been a few hours so this may be why). When I search on desktop device and type in domain.com/amp the redirect works perfectly. Do you know why this is happening?

    Reply

    • You would need to clear any caching as the most common reason it would still be showing up.

      Reply

      Admin

  29. Hey,

    I tried this way and now my website is not loading, it is giving an error message that

    ” redirected you too many times ”

    Please help me out in getting it back.

    Reply

  30. I have done method 1 and cleared/deleted cache and it still shows the AMP version? Any tips how to fix?

    Reply

    • You would want to check that your host does not have caching enabled and your redirects do no have any typos

      Reply

      Admin

  32. Hi,
    You guys are doing great.
    After creating AMP i have seen down in my traffic.
    So i decided to remove that and i did.
    I got many errors. So, i had to install amp again.
    Now finally this article helped me a lot to completely remove amp.
    Thank you very much WPbeginner.
    You are a lifesaver!

    Reply

  34. Can I disable redirection plugin after AMP completely gone from Google search result? Please help.

    Reply

    • If you would like you can. Be warned that would remove the redirects so if the links start appearing as broken links in your search console you may need to readd the redirects.

      Reply

      Admin

  35. Hey. Thank you very much for the info but i had a question. It does not work with me method 1. it suppose to be non amp as soon as i do redirect right ?

    my website is https so i made it as https that what it should be ? Thanks in advance

    Reply

    • If you are using https then you would want the second field as https, as long as you don’t have caching then it should automatically update. If not, you would want to reach out to the plugin’s support for them to take a look.

      Reply

      Admin

    • As it would depend on if Google still links to your AMP pages, we don’t have a set time to remove it we would recommend at the moment.

      Reply

      Admin

  37. Hi, thanks for helping. I used method 1. All the blog posts are being displayed in proper format but home page, about, contact such pages are still being displayed in AMP. How to fix it?

    Reply

    • You may want to check with the author of the redirection plugin to ensure there isn’t a hiccup with the created redirect.

      Reply

      Admin

  38. Thanks a lot
    Now I disable and delete AMP Plugin. and redirect lINKS by first method.
    but I have a question , If I want reinstall AMP plugin again
    what I should do about redirections????

    Reply

  39. I’ve used Method 1 – Using Redirection Plugin. Now, my question is after adding the redirection is it necessary to keep plugin installed & activated?

    OR I can remove the plugin after adding the redirection?

    Reply

    • Using the plugin, you would need to keep the plugin active for the redirects to continue.

      Reply

      Admin

  41. Hi,
    I used the redirection method and the AMP pages are redirected to fine, but the address remain as /?amp.

    Should I worry?

    Reply

    • If the redirection is working correctly, then you do not need to worry about the urls.

      Reply

      Admin

  42. I would like to know how can I 301 redirect if my amp url is structured like this

    site.com/amp/your-article/

    I am using better amp.

    Thank you.

    Reply

    • Hi Mark,

      The htaccess method in this post should handle that redirect for you

      Reply

      Admin

  43. Thank you so much! I was struggling with accidentally adding AMP pages and then removing them to losing a lot of traffic. Then, I felt defeated, so I reinstalled AMP. Method 1 with the Redirection plug-in was so easy I wish I had seen this sooner. THANKS!!

    Reply

    • If you removed AMP completely and clearing your cache did not remove the AMP versions you may want to check with your hosting provider to ensure they don’t have caching or similar that would be affecting the AMP pages.

      Reply

      Admin

  45. I’m using the Yoast plugin for redirects – what do I input and where to redirect my amp urls to my non-amp ones?

    Reply

  47. Hi I disabled the AMP plugin and set up a redirect as per the article. The redirect works, but the AMP pages are still in google index and working. How long until google replaces them with my non amp pages. Please let me know how long it takes organically vs anything I can do to speed this up that is proven to work. Thankyou!

    Reply

  48. This helped so much thank you! I’ve asked WP support, and they had nothing to offer me for a solution. The new version of WordPress.com doesn’t let you deactivate AMP so I used the Redirection plugin. Thank you again!!!

    Reply

  49. You are an absolute lifesaver! After implementing AMP, my user engagement dropped significantly, my site links in Google totally disappeared, my ranking (for my niche) was at the bottom of the barrel.

    AMP is not really designed for podcasts AT ALL.

    Once I decided it wasn’t going to work out, I deleted the plugin only to generate thousands of 404 errors related to AMP. I found myself creating unnecessary laborious work creating redirects every day as they popped up.

    Finally, I got frustrated and performed a search and replace in my database to remove amp/ which was a massive mistake. Suddenly my site was no longer available. I deleted the plugin and everything was restored but what to do about all the 404 errors related to AMP?

    I ran across your website through a Google search and presto. In one fell swoop, all my headaches disappeared. My sitelinks have been restored and yesterday I received an email from Google stating that mobile-first indexing was enabled on my site.

    I cannot thank you enough!

    Reply

    • Hi Keith,

      We are glad you found the article helpful :) You may want to join us on Twitter for more WordPress tips and tutorials. Next time you come across an issue, don’t forget to search WPBeginner first for a solution :)

      Reply

      Admin

Leave A Reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Featured in

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 WPBeginner LLC. All Rights Reserved. WPBeginner® is a registered trademark.

Managed by Awesome Motive | WordPress hosting by SiteGround | WordPress Security by Sucuri.

I need help with…

Popular searches:

Starting a
Blog WordPress
SEO WordPress
Performance WordPress
Errors WordPress
Security Building an
Online Store